Day 27

Yesterday was a pure-chess day (very enjoyable!). I played chess for about 3 hours and did a lot of chess problems. Last night, I thought up a thinking process. It involves force (material and threats), development, pawn structure, space, and safety (king, pieces, pawns, and double checking moves).

1. Where is my force directing now? Where do I want my pieces to be? Can I gain an advantage in force? Are there any undefended or weakly defended pieces? Repeat the same questions for my opponent.

2. Who has superior development? Who is attacking and who is defending? How can I make my position better?

3. What are the pawn structures like? Which side's is better? How does my pawn structure help or hinder me? Should I change my pawn structure? Can I attack or make my ooponent's structure weak?

4. Who has more space? If I am up space, don't trade pieces.

5. Who has a safer king? Are there any undefended pieces that I can exploit with tactics? Double check that any move is safe before actually moving.

I also am thinking of using Rakshasas' method of planning or the SCAN process in Russell Black's articles. Hopefully, as I play more and more at GameKnot, my thought process will become ingrained in my mind and will transfer to OTB play and regular time-control chess servers.

Today I did 10 problems from "More Chessercizes: Checkmate." I don't know if I am getting better or if these puzzles are the easiest section of mate-in-fours in the book. I hope it is the former. :-)

69 days left
.5 hr. completed, 28 total
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